SPC Geoscience Division

Home News & Media Releases Latest Palau Develops Pool of Post-Disaster Needs Assessors

Palau Develops Pool of Post-Disaster Needs Assessors

E-mail Print PDF

10 April 2015 - What is the true cost of a disaster in human and economic terms? Once we know, what can we do to support the recovery of affected people? These are the questions to be considered next week by a group of 25 participants as they complete Palau’s first national training course in Post Disaster Needs Assessment, as part of Palau’s preparations for the forthcoming typhoon season.

The training is supported by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the European Union (EU) through a joint project called ACP-EU Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific. Starting on Monday, the week-long training will increase Palau’s ability to calculate the cost of damage

and loss from future disaster events and to use this data to inform the identification of long term recovery and reconstruction needs and solutions.

 

 


Widely accepted as the international standard, Post Disaster Needs Assessments are comprehensive assessments that reveal the true cost of disasters by identifying all the impacts and calculating the cost of the damage and associated losses.

 

Their level of detail and accuracy provides a strong foundation for identifying and prioritising appropriate measures to effect timely recovery and reconstruction.

“The training will enable Palau to learn from recent examples in Fiji and Samoa where the assessments revealed that the true cost of disasters far exceeds original estimates,” the Coordinator of Palau’s National Emergency Management Office, Ms Priscilla Subris, said. “It’s also going to give participants the foundations for developing Standard Operating Procedures to guide the conduct of Post Disaster Needs Assessments in Palau,” Ms Subris said.  

The training will be led by Dr Asha Kambon, a specialist in the Post Disaster Needs Assessment methodology, with support from SPC’s Dr Kirstie Méheux. It will run from Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April at Palau’s National Emergency Operations Centre.

Media Contacts:
Ms Priscilla Subris, Coordinator, National Emergency Management Office, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (+680 488 2249)
Dr Kirstie Méheux, Senior Adviser Disaster Risk Management Training, SPC, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

NOTES TO EDITORS:
About the ACP-EU Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific Project
The project’s objective is to reduce the vulnerability as well as the social, economic and environmental costs of disasters caused by natural hazards, thereby achieving regional and national sustainable development and poverty reduction goals in Africa Caribbean Pacific (ACP) Pacific Island States. Palau is one of 15 Pacific countries involved in the project. The total value of the project is €19,367,000.

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 June 2015 10:42  

Newsflash

The Water and Sanitation Programme has commenced implementation of the “Improving Drinking Water Supply for Kiritimati Island” project. The objective of the project is to improve livelihoods and secure safe and sustainable drinking water with the focus on infrastructural upgrade of the reticulated supply to the two main communities of London and Tennessee. The project is funded by the European Union with a budget of €4.8 million to be implemented over a four year period.

The Contribution Agreement between the EU and SPC was signed in January 2014 with the Project Coordinator, George Beck, now based in Kiritimati Island. The project will be working closely with the Ministry of Line and Phoenix Islands Development (MLPD), Government of Kiribati, including other key stakeholders to improve the supply of drinking water to the two main communities on Kiritimati Island.

The first task will involve rehabilitating the existing reticulated infrastructure to improve the flow of water and collect data so as to better understand the status of the groundwater lenses. The project will also focus on building capacity at MLPD and undertake awareness in promoting good management and conservation practices.